Thursday, August 28, 2014

*** We are about to head out on a short little camping trip to sooth our savage beasts and clear our heads. I can never quite articulate how I feel about getting outside, so I will let John Muir do it for me, better than I ever could.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in
and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body
and soul alike.
-
The Yosemite (1912), page 256.

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once
in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the
woods. Wash your spirit clean.
- Muir quoted by Samuel Hall Young in Alaska Days with John Muir (1915) chapter 7

Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose
like that of the green deep woods. Here grow the wallflower
and the violet. The squirrel will come and sit upon your
knee, the logcock will wake you in the morning. Sleep in
forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the upness accessible to
mortals, there is no upness comparable to the mountains.
- John
of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, (1938), page 235.

As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds
sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of
flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with
the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of
the world as I can.
- Quoted from Muir Journals (undated fragment, c. 1871) by Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945) page 144.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

"We’re [so] attached to what we [are] going to do —
and how we will share that with the world — that we forget what it
feels like to just simply live a life undocumented, unshared and
unrecorded. " Abundant Mama

I've been off Facebook for two weeks now and it's taken about that long to quit thinking in status updates, which is ridiculous. I had no idea how noisy my life had become until I turned off what was essentially a nonstop clamor of other people saying stuff. Good stuff, mostly. Some bad stuff. But it was mostly just noise. And laws, but my head had been aching for quiet for a long time.

As a naturally anxious and high strung person, I've always sought out the quiet and the space to give myself a little room to breathe. I love parties, groups, and events, but I need SPACE and time to recover from it all and I need a lot of it. With four kids around all the time, solitude is in short supply here. I've always been like that but recently the strain started to feel unbearable. So much noise. Most of it, though, was coming from elements of my life that I thought were essential and I have learned that they just weren't. I have LOVED being away from Facebook. It's been like turning off a loud TV I forgotten was on. There is literally no reason I can think of to be on there any more. I've paid more attention to the life I am living and the people in my home. Enough attention that I realized we needed more space like that in our lives. We dropped some activities we had been in, added some purposeful time together, upped the time we spend with people from church, turned off the tv and ipads more, and made room in our day-to-day life for peace and quiet. It's been real good. At the end of the day, I have been moving towards a purposefully slower and more intentioned type of life. One that may look a little different than others, but really, who has a typical life? We all make different choices from different circumstances and our lives will look different as a result. With so many people in this family that need the space, the routine, and the peace that comes from a smaller selection of choices, I've found that limiting what we keep in our lives has been unbelievably freeing.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

If you know me but at all, you'll know I'm not one for waxing philosphical up front. You are much more likely to find me in the back, making self-deprecating comments or gently (ish) mocking ones. I generally like to couch my stories in hyperbole and my advice in humor. However, today I was hit with an idea that is not very funny, nor is it very snarky. It's just a bit honest and corny. But I can admit that.

I have been trying to change the way we eat for a while now, moving towards eliminating artificial dyes and processed foods as much as possible without going crazy. It can get to be a bit like going down the rabbit hole, where you look up and realize that you are drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper while trying to decide if you should grind your own organic wheat, and maybe you should start fermenting things for probiotic benefit, too. While I was doing all the googling, though, I read this from Heavenly Homemakers and it struck me.

"Nourishment. I needed nourishment. My family needed nourishment."

There are many choices I make for my family, from what to feed them to what to read to them, what I teach them about God and about life. Every one of those choices has the potential to nourish my family. If I ask myself before each action I take (or let's be honest, if I just ask it when I remember to) "Will this nourish them?" I will be changing so much about how I view my role as Wife, Mother, and Friend. Will the dinner I make tonight nourish their body? Not "Will it harm them?", but "Will it nourish them?" Will the book I read to them before bed nourish their mind? Will the story reach out and grab them and make them think more of their own thoughts, deeper and deeper? I can teach them about God in terms that make them fearful or judgemental, or I can nourish them with the Word that tells my children that the Almighty loves them and expects great things from them. I can plant the seeds of love for the outdoors and watch as God's nature nourishes and quiets their souls. I can speak words of nourishment to my husband and not words that question his decisions or his plans. I can encourage friends and speak words of nourishment to them, not words that tear them or their choices down.

Funny enough, I can do these things while still being myself and making jokes in the back of the room. I can do these things and know that asking myself constantly "Is this nourishing?" is the height of mawkish sentimentality, but do it anyway because it makes life better.

It's a change, though, viewing my role in positive terms.

I think as parents, spouses and friends we often view ourselves and wonder if we are screwing it up. If we are screwing "them" up, whoever they may be. We wonder if the food we serve is going to give them cancer later, if the books we read will make them smart enough, if the tv we let them watch will make them have ADD, if our words will echo in their minds as they go about their day - and not in a good way. Imagine if we stopped doing that, though. If we viewed our actions and our words as nourishment and we tried to make them that as often as possible, we could do so much more than worry. Walking around our homes and jobs trying to nourish, instead of trying to Not Screw Up.

I think I'll give that a go. I'll tell you you are doing a good job, I'll read books to my kids that are engaging and that make them think. I'll make food that makes them feel better and I'll speak words that aren't meant to hurt hearts. I will endeavor to build up strong and not worry that the building will fall if I make a misstep.

I will nourish.

***

Recognize, though, if you walk up to me and ask me if I'm being "Nourishing" I will hit you. And then nourish you with a band-aid and neosporin :)

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

I often wonder how other people homeschool and what materials they use. Some of it is plain curiosity and some of it is hoping they have the Holy Grail Curriculum/Methodology that will enable me to make my children into absolute prodigies. For what it's worth, that probably doesn't exist, but I still like to look, just in case. So for the curious, here is what our days look like.

Morning Time:In an ideal world, we begin our mornings after breakfast around 9am, all clean clothed and teeth brushed. We sit on the couch snuggled together and start with a prayer. More often than not, though, half of us are still in pajamas, the other half are still eating breakfast and I'm yelling at everyone to "Sit Your Butts On The Couch Or Else!", running around trying to keep the little kids occupied and the big kids engaged, a bit like Whack-A-Mole. Regardless of the pace, though, we start with a prayer and we do a little memory work (we're memorizing pronouns at the moment, as well as a couple of poems and bible verses), and I read from a few books.

Our current selections

Individual Work:Once the kids have totally listened to and absorbed my every word and not played with the legos in their pockets the whole time, we move on to individual work. The older kids start things they don't need my help with (Spelling Workout, Building Thinking Skills, Life of Fred, etc.) and then when the little kids have been played with I move to the big kids and work with them. We use Teaching Textbooks & Horizons for math, so it's all on the computer, but with David I still need to be near him to help him keep his focus. We do Grammar and Writing, which involve me working individually with the kids using Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons.

Lunch Break:

Obviously, we stand on ceremony here. If they aren't immediately outside, then they are screwing around inside or trying to convince me to let them watch Horrible Histories on the computer while we eat. I let them do that a lot, can't help it. The show is fabulous. Quiet Reading Time:A fairly recent addition to our day is Quiet Reading Time. After lunch I put Nolan in his room to nap or play quiet-ishly, Allie in her room to play, and the older kids and I sit in the living room and read quietly for 30 minutes. This is their assigned reading time, so it's not just fun books. David is almost finished with The Littles right now and Taylor is working on The Tale of Despereaux. Occasionally, Allie joins us with a pile of stuffed animals and picture books, but that tends to make it a lot less quiet :) Group Work:After we are pretty sure that Nolan is asleep and we've all had a chance to go to our corners and have some quiet time, we group back up for History or Science. We are studying Modern History this year with Story of the World Vol. 4 and Chemistry with Elemental Science. We *love* Story of the World, and the kids look forward to whatever we are doing with it. I usually set them up with some sort of hands on activity (legos, History Pockets, a coloring page from the Activity Guide, etc) and either they listen to the chapter on audio book, or I read to them from whatever extra library books we've gotten on the subject. For Science, we use Elemental Science: Chemistry for the Grammar Stage very loosely. Mostly, though, I do a bit of reading, let them read some extra stuff, watch a LOT of youtube videos and do experiments from Adventures with Atoms and Molecules. This is also when we throw in the more elective-type things, like Art, Nature Study, or extra things they are interested in. Coffee Break:

Literally the best part of my day. Dave comes in from his home office out back and we have a little snack and some coffee and chit chat about how the day has gone so far while the kids wrap up their afternoon work. Also, Sleepy and Grumpy up there on the Burr grinder are there to remind me that coffee covers a multitude of attitude problems.

Clean Up & Free Time: As we wrap up our day, I try to have the kids put all the things back that we used and do their regular chores. Sometimes I set a timer, put on some music and we race through the house picking things up and putting them back. Sometimes I get my megaphone (no lie) and yell to put away anything they don't want thrown away because this vacuum is running come hell or high water. It can go either way, really. But when things are picked up or I just don't care anymore they are free to run amok. David is usually out the back door in a flash and is playing with our neighbor, sometimes the other kids join them or they go off on their own and play on the computer or read until dinner or whatever activity they have that night. And that's all! Most school days run like this, with trips and triggers here and there that sometimes blow the whole thing to pot, but that's life :).